Sunday, February 19, 2017

MSIT Department Holds Bi-Annual Corporate Advisory Meeting

Dr. Hank Baily

The Master of Science in Instructional Technology (MSIT) Department held its bi-annual Corporate Advisory Council (CAC) Meeting (Nov. 9-11, 2016). This semester over 39 individuals representing 25 different companies traveled to Bloomsburg Univeristy to watch students present their solutions to a mock request for proposals (RFP) around the topic of eLearning. The student teams competed with each other to win the “contract.” On day one of the conference, corporations presented projects and demonstrated eLearning that they had been developing. On day two, students presented their solutions, and on day three students interviewed for jobs and internships. The CAC event is held every spring and fall. An additional highlight of this event is that the founder of the Institute for Interactive Technologies and the MSIT program, Dr. Hank Bailey, returned to provide his historical perspective on the changes in instructional technology over the years.

Penn Jillette (center) with Dr. Kapp
and Bloomsburg University students

In October 2016, several MSIT students traveled to an industry eLearning conference where they had the opportunity to assist Dr. Karl Kapp with a workshop focused on game design. The students helped training industry professionals create prototypes for learning games. The students also met with industry professionals who explained what it was like to work in the online learning industry, and they even had a chance to meet with keynote speaker Penn Jillette of the Penn and Teller duo.
The students toured the exposition hall and learned about the latest innovations in online learning and instruction.

The students also competed in an event called DemoFest
where they submitted online learning projects they developed to be evaluated by
industry professionals. At DemoFest, showed their
projects, which were voted on by industry professionals.

Graduate student Andrew Murray project on safety won the student award. This is the second year in a row that a
Bloomsburg MSIT student has won first place.